Articles tagged with "eastern"

Eastern Lightning began in 1991 as an offshoot of a Protestant church in Henan, China. In the late 80s and early 90s, other small independent Christian sects were sprouting up all over China that were warning that the apocalypse was coming, and claiming they possessed powers of healing and exorcism. In previous articles, Bronwyn has written on the history of the movement's leaders and presence in NZ, while Dan and Mark have both discussed their experiences within the group. This time round, I'm going to talk about how the Eastern Lightning church grew and survived in China. Most of the information is drawn from Emily Dunn's book Lightning from the East: Heterodoxy and Christianity in Contemporary China.

In this week's newsletter I've taken a deep dive into a spam email trying to flog me snake oil, and found a funny coincidence at the end of the rainbow. I've also written about some of the more sneaky tactics I've seen the church of the Eastern Lightning use to try to attract new members, and keep them in the church. And finally Bronwyn has returned to Multi Level Marketing schemes (MLMs), detailing Prüvit and their health food products - I'm very tempted to make a joke about the food pyramid!